Weekly update

I had a Dr. appointment yesterday concerning my breathing issues – he felt that it was a minor exercise induced asthma caused due to seasonal allergies. He told me to try taking a claritan everyday and prescribed an inhaler to use prior to workouts. So I figure I’m going to go on that for a while and during my next rest week, go sans the inhaler to see what happens.

I was reviewing my training log this morning and my training load had actually been pretty high this year, a lot higher then I expected. I’ve averaged 16.5 hours of training a week thus far this year. At this point I am 70k yards swimming, 1100 miles biking, and 400 miles running behind where I was last year – total. The way I figure it before Hawaii I’ll exceed last years totals by about 200k yards, 2600 miles, and 300 miles (swim bike run). That’s a percentage increase by about 50%, 42%, and 23%.

Those numbers tell me a few things

It’s pretty obvious I’ll have done 2 ironmans this year

I’m ignoring my run

No wonder I’m so tired

So i’m planning to try to really crank some run miles to get that back in shape and make up some ground. I am a bit concerned about the fatique – it’s still a long ways to Hawaii and a part of me wonders if I should take a small break to get some extra rest or if I should just press forward to my next rest week in two weeks…

Another thing I have been thinking about, especially since Racine didn’t go as well as I had hoped for (not that it went bad), but I’m starting to think that 8:59:59 might be a goal that I need to work on for a couple more years. I think I’m definately capable of it and most likely have the fitness for it, but I’m not strong enough. I rode a 2:22 at Racine, and while that didn’t seem to taxing for a half – I ran very poorly off of it. I’d like to blame it on breathing issues, or something, but I just didn’t run well. We’ll see how it goes and those metrics are still what I’m working towrds (~250W @5 hours, and 7 mpm long run pace) – will it happen this fall? I dunno, but I’ve got a heck of a journey to enjoy.

One of the things I hate about Ironman triathlons is the need to plan a season so far in advance – in order to do one or more Ironman races next year I’ve got to plan now – before my current season is even over – talk about dividing your attention! Right now It’s looking like my A-race will be Ironman Canada, with a follow up at Kona if the stars align themselves right. Now on the off chance I were to win my age group at Kona this year, this plan would probably change. Since it’s next to impossible to register for IMC, I’m most likely going to do the California 70.3 to get an IMC slot. I’ll probably fill in the time inbetween with the Triple-T, and the Rockman Half Iron. I’m going to do fewer races next year, but try and focus on each of them a little more.

Workout wise just a normal base week, should come in around 22 hours total. Had a pretty good long run on Tuesday and a nice recovery ride last night. Tonight is some hard intervals on the bike to get the legs working.